It is generally known that pharmaceutical products may be distributed in a variety of forms. Single dose pharmaceutical products are commonly available in tablets, lozenges, capsules, and the like. It is also known that single dose pharmaceutical products may be packaged in a number of well-known package housing structures including child resistant packaging. Many of the well-known package housing systems secure the pharmaceutical products inside pharmaceutical fold-over cards.
Many traditional fold-over cards typically include a one-piece structure combining a plurality of pharmaceutical securing layers and a tether. The pharmaceutical securing layers fix the pharmaceutical products in place while the tether is configured to couple the fold-over card to a pharmaceutical shell package housing.
As the treatment of illnesses and consequently the administration of pharmaceuticals becomes increasingly customized, packaging configurations are also becoming customized. Customization of packaging configurations allows producers to complement pharmaceutical packaging with custom dosages of pharmaceuticals, multiple pharmaceutical arrangements, and varying pharmaceutical quantities and sizes, either in a single blister package or a combination thereof. Customization of packaging configurations is also beneficial when implementing clinical trials conducted to evaluate a new treatment or drug. The customized packaging can be specifically configured with new pharmaceuticals and placebo to satisfy testing requirements of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other clinical trials. Rapid production of the customized packages, as well as their associated housings, reduces the time necessary for a pharmaceutical to be available for general clinical use.
However, as custom packages associated with a customized distribution or arrangement of pharmaceuticals is requested, new tooling and/or complete package re-design is often needed to produce desired custom packages. Consequently, each request for a customized arrangement of pharmaceuticals entails designing and manufacturing an entirely new fold-over card, including the plurality of pharmaceutical securing layers that correspond with the new arrangement of pharmaceuticals and the tether associated with various packaging structures of the customized pharmaceutical packaging. Each time the pharmaceutical packaging or pharmaceutical arrangement changes, the reconfiguration of tooling and complete fold-over card design introduce an added delay to the release of the pharmaceutical product. That is, the need to retool each time a new pharmaceutical packaging or configuration is developed is not only monetarily expensive but is also temporally expensive. Time delays in the pharmaceutical industry are detrimental because time is of the essence in order to treat human ailments or complete clinical trials where release of a product to consumers depends on the satisfactory completion of the clinical trial.